Two-time Le Mans winner, sports car world champion, five overall victories in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring and member of the FIA Hall of Fame: Timo Bernhard is undoubtedly one of Germany’s most successful racing drivers of all time. In 2019, the current Porsche brand ambassador ended his active career after finally immortalizing himself on the Nordschleife with the crazy Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo.
Bernhard is now at the command post – and is causing a sensation in this role too: With his Team75 Motorsport, he gave the Zuffenhausen-based company its first victory in the DTM in 2022. At that time, the reigning DTM champion Thomas Preining (now at Manthey) was even fighting for the title in the only Bernhard Porsche 911 GT3 R until the very end.
Timo Bernhard does not rule out DTM comeback
Team75 Motorsport competed in 31 DTM races in the 2022 and 2023 seasons, achieving two victories through Preining and a total of seven podium finishes with Laurin Heinrich and Ayhancan Güven (now at Manthey). It had already become clear in the final spurt of last year that Bernhard’s team would not return to the DTM starting grid in 2024. Many fans miss the family-run team, which could not keep up financially with the ‘big players’ but often conjured up the maximum of its possibilities.
As Bernhard now revealed, a DTM comeback is not out of the question! “We don’t have to come back at any price,” says the 43-year-old in the current Motorsport Magazine-Print edition. “The framework conditions have to be right. But I have a huge racing heart and for me the DTM has simply been the racing series in Germany for decades. The series needs to be protected, preserved and made more sustainable. If we can contribute to this, we would be very happy.”
Bernhard: “Could be back in DTM next year or the year after”
The DTM chapter may be closed for now, but Team75 has remained loyal to GT3 racing. A new cooperation with the Asian company Phantom Global Racing caused a stir at the 12 Hours of Bathurst and at the 24 Hours of Spa this weekend.
Bernhard’s team is also involved as a support team in the GT World Challenge Asia, in which GT3 vehicles also compete. In addition, they have returned to the Porsche Carrera Cup, which is part of the supporting program of the DTM.
“It was important to me that we continue to be represented in GT3 racing,” Bernhard explained the plan behind his racing program. “Because if the overall situation is right, we could be back in the DTM next year or the year after. It was important to me to keep the know-how and to keep up with the times. Otherwise you lose staff and I didn’t want that. Our staff has remained stable and I could just as easily use the crew from the Carrera Cup in the DTM again.”
“Porsche certainly didn’t want to lose us as a team in the DTM”
In the German Carrera Cup, Team75 is in fourth place in the overall standings after four race weekends. The 18-year-old Dutchman Robert de Haan, who is considered a top talent, and his 17-year-old team-mate Janne Stiak from Steinhude are competing in the Porsche one-make cup, which Bernard himself won in 2001, tied with Jörg Bergmeister, on the way to a dream career.
Last year’s departure from the DTM was primarily due to financial reasons and was anything but easy for Bernhard: “It wasn’t nice for me, of course, I always want to move forward. It takes a certain personal strength to be able to look from a distance and see what the best way forward is. It would have continued with the DTM somehow, but that’s not my approach. Porsche certainly didn’t want to lose us as a team in the DTM. But I think I put forward good arguments to my partners to return to the Carrera Cup.”
You can read a major exclusive interview with Porsche icon, ex-racing driver and team boss Timo Bernhard in the current print edition of Motorsport Magazine. Here Bernhard gives exciting insights into the tough motorsport business. The issues sell out quickly, so it’s best to subscribe here:
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